{Blog Tour: Review + Giveaway} Mia and the Bad Boy by Lisa Burstein

Ryder Brooks is living the dream—he’s famous, loved by millions of girls, and miserable. All he really wants is to write his own music, not Seconds to Juliet’s sugary sweet pop. In order to do that, though, the “bad boy” of the band will have to play by the rules. And that includes behaving with his new—and super cute—über-good-girl tutor.

Mia Reyes is in fangirl heaven. Tutoring her favorite member of her favorite band? It’s a dream come true…until it turns into a complete nightmare. Ryder is nothing like she thought. He’s crude, arrogant, and pretty much a total jerk. And the worst part? She’s roped into pretending to be his girlfriend so that no one finds out he’s being tutored. Fake kisses, plenty of PDA, and even sharing his hotel room…

But sometimes even the baddest of bad boys needs a little redemption.

REVIEW:

I’m a fan of the bad boys, it’s those dark, moody and mysterious guys that have such an interesting story. Even though I hadn’t read the first in the backstage series, I was easily able to grasp the world of the band boy life and how each guy is struggling with many different personal issues.

Mia and the Bad Boy follows, Ryder Brooks who the “bad boy” of the band Seconds to Juliet. However its not his ideal life, he gets to be around his love of music. But he eventually wants more, he needs to get his GED in order to attend the music college of his dreams. Now this bad boy gets a tutor but it needs to stay secret not only for his image but because being a celebrity he has many secrets. Mia is not prepared to be the tutor of Ryder especially since his persona is not so nice, but Mia is the only one who can help him. Together they need to get along to reach their goals but aren’t prepared for the blooming connection that they have the longer their together.

Ryder is a complex guy; young and talented in writing music, he hopes to one day take his career in another direction. But he needs and education and wants to go to music school. Luckily his manager gets him a secret tutor, not so lucky she is forced to pretend to be his girlfriend so not to ruin his image and make him seem uneducated. I loved this concept, Ryder is hard to get along with, and I mean everyone has a hard time including his band mates. So it was nice to see Mia, his new tutor gives him a piece of his own medicine but also be kind enough to understand his feelings. Ryder has an interesting past with his family, it effects him greatly and also pushes him to move forward and be better. I liked that he had goals set for himself and how much Mia pushed him to do better and be better.

Mia is a smart and sweet girl, who has done everything in life to make her parents happy. She is hoping to get accepted to UCLA for medical school, because its what her parents want. When she meets Ryder she is taken back by his demeanor but she slowly sees the better person he is and how much music means to him. He also opens her up to expressing herself and her true talents. I loved how they both pushed eat other to become the person that they wanted to be, not what others wanted them to be,

Overall this was a sweet romance between two talented people. They were both misunderstood by their parents who were blind to their children’s talents and didn’t love them for them. I wished we knew more about the families since it seemed to focus hugely on what they thought of their children; this also made their decisions in life change. In the end I enjoyed seem the band members interact, they are so different and hilarious get along and don’t get along. But it was nice to see how they dealt with their rise in fame. I also was hoping for more drama and more clashes then there were, but its sweetness won over. I look forward to continuing the series and seeing how each member finds their happiness.

Lisa Burstein is a tea seller by day and a writer by night. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from the Inland Northwest Center for Writers at Eastern Washington University and is glad to finally have it be worth more than the paper it was printed on. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her very patient husband, a neurotic dog and two cats.

She wrote her first story when she was in second grade. It was a Thanksgiving tale from the point of view of the turkey from freezer to oven to plate. It was scandalous.